Comments (13)

If Homer builds his hotel AND we can persuade Paul Allen to build another at the Rose Garden, we can create the synergy necessary to avoid bankrupting The Avalon (again). Wait for it.... TRIPLE LINCHPIN.

If we do it right, The Nines can pay back the money they borrowed from CoP to upgrade to gold bathroom fixtures.

This will only be possible if we sprinkle all three projects with magic cost projections and risk transfer to the public sector.

Failing that, poodle poop recycling is the only future development strategy.

Apartments with no parking is a perfect fit for the many biotech employees. They can walk next door to their offices, or tram it up to the Pill Hill for their OHSU gig. Sweet! I love it when the plan comes together perfectly.

Mr. Dike Dames, poodle poop recycling is what the proposed SoWhat Eco-District biomass burner is to accomplish. A total synergy cluster...

I wonder what has happened to the three parks that were promised in the SoWhat Agreements. One is built, where's the other two? The Plans and documents before City Council in 1999 and a few years after required the three. The Schnitzer, now OHSU property was the indicated location of one. And another was to be located on a block west of the Greenway down by Spaghetti Factory. Did they forget? We need those parks to generate poodle poop.

Maybe PDC is waiting for SoWhat property values to rebound again before they give a property owner like Dames/Homer that paid $1.6 Million for a block, then six months later give them $4 Million (Block 49). Or pay The Storage property owners $5 Million for the Caruthers Park property when if they bought it four years earlier could have bought for much less before inflation set in. PDC doesn't think ahead. But it's probably on purpose to help do sweetheart deals for the "stakeholders".

As we've been told over and over, building apartments and condos is needed to save the planet, so let's be grateful and rejoice that we have such wise and visionary leaders who use our resources for such noble purposes.

Evans, minimally there are TOD subsidies, and there will probably be more.

Zidell already got the taxpayer paid raising of SW Moody at a cost of over $69 Million. That allowed them to not excavate the toxic site, which of all the properties in SoWhat has the "hottest spots". They are able to just fill over the top. Plus they get the benefit of new raised 14 ft site allowing for two levels of parking under the apartments. A big savings.

I'm sure they'll also put in some "affordable" units that again gets subsidies and property tax abatements. Zidell has been lobbying to include "workforce" and "student" housing to qualify as affordable housing. The feds don't recognize those uses as "affordable", but CoP knows better.

But, what do you do when the fix has already happened? Leave it undeveloped?

That's the problem, once the scam is done and the public can't get the money back, that is called being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In my book, you have to stop throwing good money after bad and insist on no subsidy. Now, if that means the property stays undeveloped for a long time, so be it. It's happened before and will again. Portland developers are like junkies hooked on subsidies, I get that.

It seems impossible, but Portland development has to get back to a "zero subsidy" playing field. Yes, there will be "withdrawl," but if Portland can kick the habit (and generate economic growth through 'neutral', open to all comers, pro growth policies), then these undeveloped land parcels will be built upon as it becomes economic to do so.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 155
At this date last year: 241
Total run in 2015: 271
In 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269